Let the Learning Begin…..

View this YouTube video called ‘Building Academic Library 2.0’. Consider advice provided by one or more of the speakers in terms of a library and information agency that you know (as an employee or user). Select five (5) key pieces of advice from these speakers, and consider how these may be applied to your library to help it embrace a Library 2.0 ethos. Write up your findings as a post (of no more than 350 words in your OLJ).

In my current position as a primary school teacher, I work in partnership with a team of innovative teacher librarians. The following thought provoking pieces of advice in the video file titled ‘Building Academic Library 2.0’ created by Berkeley Academic Library U.S. related to me and encouraged me to reflect:

Leave comments open on your blog. People write useful comments and replies on library blogs, these comments can help other library users to learn. Is your library ready to be “open” and share feedback from users. This is a good honest way to ask questions to library users and then leave their comments open for others to read. This allows users of the library to connect and shows students that the library “cares” and values their feedback.

RSS feeds. Allow users to acquire content and information on their own terms by subscribing to RSS feeds on particular websites that contain information that users are interested in e.g. news websites, natural disasters websites, receiving others blog updates. Users subscribe to the RSS feed and then receive updated information by email or text. This could be particularly useful in a school library when new books are catalogued and ready for borrowing. Therefore library users will not have to visit the library website to look for information about new books, the information will come to them, they can read the content when they are ready, then immediately take action.

Don’t focus just on technologies. Think about the technology have nots, that is the issues / items that don’t consist of the use of technology. Non-technological items can be useful and powerful learning tools too.

Build a learning culture. A huge amount of money in school budgets is spent on teachers attending Professional Development courses / conferences and covering teachers when they are at these events. Valuable professional learning can take place in-house within a school, by teachers sharing ideas and successful teaching strategies with one another. If a learning culture is developed within a school this will result in staff developing programs and becoming more comfortable when using technology.

Develop a risk-tolerant culture. Let users evaluate new technologies and make changes to their teaching programs. I have seen this developed successfully in schools when time has been specifically devoted for staff to critically evaluate new technologies, to play and experience and experiment with blogs, wikis etc… If teachers do not have time to work with these new tools, resentment towards new technologies takes place.

READ the post A to Z of Social Networking for Libraries (22 January, 2010) on the Social Networking for Libraries blog. Consider this advice in terms of a library and information agency that you know (as an employee or user). Select advice from five (5) letters of this A-Z list and consider how these may be applied to this library to help it embrace a Library 2.0 ethos. Write up your findings as a post (of no more than 350 words in your OLJ).

E-books – The library at my school has introduced ebooks into the library collection at the beginning of 2013. This has been through the application Overdrive. Ebooks are proving to be very popular amongst students and parents. They can be viewed on a range of devices e.g. ipad, ipod. There are plans to expand the collection of ebooks in 2013 and 2014 in order to link the collection to the Australian Curriculum.

Blogging – Blogging allows for responses and comments from readers of your blog. This proves especially beneficial to students as they gain feedback from readers of all ages around the world, from both a known audience and a not known reader. Blogging allows students to interact and connect with users in an interactive way allowing conversations to take place. WordPress is currently being used as a blogging platform in the library at my school.

Nings – At the Flat Classrooms Conference 2013 in Japan, a Ning was used as the platform for communication during the conference. A Ning is similar to a wiki where users have access to communicate in a shared online space. Resources, conference details, introductions and all communication took place on the conference Ning. A Ning could be a useful tool to introduce for staff to share their professional learning at my new school.

Slideshare – This tool has not been used at my school yet. However I have seen it confidently and seamlessly used by many innovative teachers and students. Slideshare is a useful way to share presentations with an online community and between a range of devices during group presentations.

Goodreads – A free online site for booklovers to share book reviews and current reads. This tool is very user friendly and encourages students to develop their love of reading. The interactive nature of the site allows users to add “friends” and create “groups”. The senior library at my school is currently looking into implementing this tool with senior students. The online engaging nature of the site makes reading fun.